


When You Lose A Friend

by Suneater (Gryn)



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: ENJOY SOME SAD SHIT, F/M, a ghost au I guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 03:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17841875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gryn/pseuds/Suneater
Summary: Annabeth has spent years trying to figure things out, but the truth is hard, and letting go is harder.





	When You Lose A Friend

**Author's Note:**

> Something I posted a while ago on ff and tumblr. Written because I can and my angst was not appreciated enough.

“Annabeth!” His voice makes her stomach lurch, her skin crawling. “Would you stop for one fucking second and listen to me? What's going on?” 

The door to the building still squeaks like a bird screaming, the peeling linoleum exactly how it was the last time she saw it– barring the few extra chunks that have gone missing over the years. Even the stink of wet dog and the street still clings to the air. Annabeth can feel herself here all those years ago, standing in these same halls, riding Percy's skateboard and struggling through homework. 

Sally Jackson's door still has the dents where Percy rode his board into it, the scratches from the time Grover’s backpack the time he slid down it, and the marks from years of the three of them kicking it open. Though it's no longer Sally Jackson's door but Sally Jackson-Blofis’ door. 

Ten years of being a detective has drilled this procedure into her. Muscle memory from the time she opens her cruiser door until she leaves the next of kin’s apartment. But this is entirely different. This isn't just another victim. It isn’t another set of questions. This is the case that started everything, that threw her into searching when she was sixteen years old and drove her to search for the answers she could never find. 

“Annabeth are you mad at me? Is this– is this about Rachel? Look, Annabeth, I can explain that see…” 

She tunes Percy out, focusing on the reason she's here. In the words she's going to have to say, and the woman she's going to devastate. 

The knock echos in the hallway and through her arm into the hollowness in her chest. 

“Annabeth!” Sally says surprised. “I wasn't expecting you. Isn't our dinner in two weeks?” 

“I'm– I'm not here for a personal visit, Sally. I'm– I'm so, so sorry, Sally.” 

Annabeth holds out the plastic bag with  _ Evidence _ in black lettering across the stripe of red. Sally takes a minute to realize what Annabeth's holding, but that's not surprising. After all it's been ten years since she's seen Percy's wallet, since he disappeared with it. 

“Why do you have my wallet?” Percy asks from over her shoulder. 

“Oh god– oh no– no that's– that's not–” 

“We haven't found any–” she hesitates, picking out the word that tastes the least bitter– “a body but– Sally, Percy’s disappearance has officially been moved to a murder investigation.” 

Some sliver of her is torn away with those words. The last of the warmth and weight that she's carried all these years suddenly gone, vanished with him and leaving her struggling to stay afloat. 

Sally's sobs come unhindered and constant. Part of her urges to reach out, to embrace the woman who was practically her mother and comfort her, but not enough. Annabeth stands behind her badge and her duty as the reporting officer. 

“Sally?” Annabeth recognizes Paul's voice. “What's going on? That's Percy's–  _ oh.” _

* * *

 

“Would you stop walking for one fucking minute and explain to me what's going on?” Percy’s words echo of the stairway walls, reverberating and sounding too real. 

He's dead. He died ten years ago when he disappeared from his apartment and was never heard from again. They have his wallet, his skateboard, all the proof they need to know that something happened to him. The boy standing behind her, shouting in her ear, is a hallucination. A shade that she's conjured up to deny what's happening, or to help cope with it, or because she's running on coffee and caffeine pills and not enough sleep. Because Percy Jackson is dead and not in this stairway with her. 

“Why would you tell my mom I'm dead? And why is no one responding to me? Annabeth! What the fuck is going on?” 

“You're not real.” 

“What?” 

“No one will answer you because you're not real.” She doesn't look back as she speaks, keeping her eyes on the stairs she takes too quickly.

“Not real? How can I not be real?” 

“You're–” she hesitates, the words refusing to come out without force “–something I made up.” 

“Really? You made  _ me _ up?” He tries to slip around next to her as they continue down the stairs. “That's the best you can do?” The humor in his voice sides off of her. 

“Go away, Percy.” 

“Why?”

“Because you're not real!” She comes to a stop, spinning to face him. “You're not here. You aren't Percy. You aren't–” she deflates as the anger rushes out of her “--you aren't him.” 

“We met when we were twelve,” he says softly, his eyes flicking between hers. “I tried to stick up for you when Nancy was making fun of your dyslexia and you kicked her ass. Then spent the next year kicking mine. At everything. And somehow that made us friends. Best friends.”

“Stop,” she tells him, voice stained. 

“We went to the eighth grade dance together. We slow danced. It was the most awkward thing ever.” 

“You need to stop.” She tries to make her voice firmer.

She turns and continues down the stairs, rushing down them as fast as she can. 

“We were dared to kiss in the volcano at the Fun Zone,” he shouts after her. “We were fourteen and you dragged me in there and you– uh, well– you kissed me and–” 

“Stop!” She grimaces at the sound of her voice echoing through the stairwell, slowly she turns to face him, the weight of the day pressing on her shoulders. “Stop.” 

“How can it not be me?” He gives her the same look, the one that he always tried to buy his way out of trouble with. 

The look he gave her after she dropped the bullies making fun of her hair, the look he gave her when she decided they were friends, the look he gave her before she kissed him under that volcano. 

“Because I remember all of that. You're inside my head and I already knew all of that.” 

“I– I kept a picture of you in my locker–”

“That I cleaned out,” she responds, arms folding over her chest. 

“Okay. Okay remember when–” he stops, staring at her for a second. “You can't get pissed but I kept the picture of you in the bikini. I had it in a drawer in my dresser.” 

Percy's face darkens with a touch of red and Annabeth marvels at how well her memories piece him together. 

“I know.” 

“Shit. Did my mom let you clean that out too?” 

“I knew about that before you– I always knew about that.” Her steady voice betrays the creep of warmth up her neck. 

“Oh…” 

“Do you see, Percy? You're not real.”

“Why? Why can't I be real? Give me one good, solid reason why I can't–” 

“Because you died!” she snaps. “You disappeared ten years ago and we found all of your stuff at the bottom of the Hudson. You died and I can't live with that. With the guilt. And now I'm punishing myself.” She waves her arms between them, hands grasping for something intangible. “Maybe it's for not saving you, or for not catching your killer. I don't know, but all that matters is that you're dead. You're. Not. Real.” 

Percy stands a step above her, still looking the same as the last time she saw him. Looking exactly the same as when he appeared at the side of the Hudson this morning when they’d shown her the waterlogged wallet and board. 

His eyes search every detail of her face. Looking for any sign that she joking, that she's fucking with him. That this is some elaborate prank. But she's told him the truth. Percy Jackson died ten years ago. And the only thing he left behind was a ghost. 

“Annabeth,” he says her name softly, carefully. 

He reaches out his hand and she recoils, snapping back to avoid touching him and nearly send herself tumbling down the stairs. 

“Don't,” she whispers. “Don't.”

* * *

 

The single lamp flicks on, a pale, sickly light barely reaching the corners of the room. She tugs off her jacket, dropping it over the back of the chair pushed underneath the over loaded desk. Annabeth scans over all of it again, the pictures and maps and reports. All arranged across the wall and stacked in tilting piles of folders. 

“Is this all…” Percy's voice trails off. 

Annabeth turns to watch him, silhouetted against the living room of her merger two bedroom apartment. In the dim light she can imagine he's real, letting him shift the ten years to grow into his shoulders. She can even see the shadow of stubble that should have just been developing when he was stolen from her. 

“Your case,” she tells him. “Everything that I could piece together.” She turns back to the wall. “Every interview and hit from security footage and lead from the fliers.” 

“So I'm– are you sure that–” 

“What would it take to get you to give up your skateboard?”

“The one you got me? Ha,” he laughs. “You'd have to pry it from my d–” he stops. 

“Because we found it in the Hudson.” 

“So it got stolen. That doesn't mean that I'm–” 

“Then where have you been the last ten years, Percy? Where are you right now?” 

“I'm right here!” 

Annabeth crosses the room in a second, her hand reaching out to press against his chest. For a second she imagines the warmth and solidness of middle, the dull thump of his heartbeat, the feeling of having him be real. But her hand slips through him with only a rush of cold and the feeling of goosebumps breaking out on her arm. 

“No, Percy. You're not.”

* * *

 

The stack of paper hits the floor with enough force to jostle the towers of files on her desk, the top tiers of a few sliding slowly to the side to collapse on one another. 

“I have read through every witness statement. Combed through every security camera. Checked every place you would have stopped. And there is nothing,  _ nothing,  _ useful.” Annabeth waves her hand at the stacks, leaning back in her chair and surveying the chaos. “It's ridiculous.” 

“You should take a break,” he says from the floor beside her, a glossy picture slipped behind a thin pane of glass in a black frame placed in front of him. 

“I should look for something else. Reevaluate what you did the days leading up to your disappearance.” 

“Annabeth, you need to sleep.” 

“You kept a predictable pattern, if something was off I'd be able to see it.” 

“I can't– couldn't– keep anything from you. You're my best friend, don't you think you would have noticed back then?” 

“You would think so,” she says, her comment far more snide than she intended. 

“Annabeth–”

“I'll be fine. I just need another coffee.” 

“How many coffees have you had?” 

“I've only had–” she glances around her desk, picking out the three cups half buried under papers. 

She turns and another one is set on the ground beside her, still half full. 

“Okay so I'll take a shower and then–” 

“Then you'll go the fuck to sleep.” 

“No. There's more work to do–”

“Which can be done tomorrow.” 

“And if I pull up reports of suspicious activity that match your description–” 

“And if you go to sleep–”

“I could piece that together with the evidence we found with your stuff… “ Annabeth starts to dig through the stacks of papers again. 

“Annabeth, I'm already dead, another day isn't going to hurt.”

“I don't need to take a break.”

“You can come back to this–”

“I said I don't need a break,” she snaps. 

“Why does it have to be right now?” 

“Because I can't wait another day, or a week, or a year. I can't keep waiting. You disappeared. Gone. And you vanished and– and I hoped that you were dead. I hate myself but it was easier to accept that than– than the idea that–” she hesitates, the words caught in her throat. 

“That I ran away. Because it would kill you to be abandoned again.” 

She swallows past the thick, dry lump in her throat. “I loved you, Percy. I still do. And I never got to tell you.”

“You're telling me now.”

Annabeth huffs out a broken laugh. “A lot of good that is.”

The first tears burn at the corner of her eyes, her vision blurring as they push in on her. 

“I was going to ask you out.” His statement makes her blink, makes her lift her head to look at him. “I got tickets to this exhibit about the pantheon. I just– I never had the courage to ask.”  

“Tickets?” 

“Yeah. Man I saved up forever to get them. I was even going to dress up, button down shirt and my nice shoes.” He grins at her, proud of himself for dragging up the worn or joke about his equally worn out converse. 

“Where?” 

“Huh?”

“Where were the tickets?” 

“I put them in a safe place.”

“Where, Percy?” she pleads. “ _ Where _ ?” 

“In a drawer in my desk, in a magazine. Why?”

* * *

 

A half a dozen boxes lay scattered around the room, identical to the one she carefully digs through. Boxes she’d been forced to wait an entire day to get her hands on. A night of restless sleep had slowly slipped away until it had finally been a reasonable enough hour to show up at the Jackson-Blofis house.

Years ago Sally had managed to clean this room, reverting it to a guest room with bare walls and plain sheets. She'd kept most of his stuff though, packed away neatly in boxes to be stored in the closet. Annabeth had helped, working a little each day until one of them inevitably broke down and had to stop. 

“Annabeth, sweetheart, do you need something to drink?” Sally’s voice filters down the hall.

“No thank you,” Annabeth yells back, eyes still searching. 

“I'll bring you something anyways.” 

Annabeth doesn't bother to protest, she's been given far too many drinks and cookies she never asked for. 

“What did the magazine look like? Describe it,” she whispers. 

“It was the one with the article about the best skateparks in California. I put the tickets right at the start is the article.” 

“You hate California.” Annabeth's eyebrows knit together. 

“Yeah, well… you talked about moving out there so I figured I'd see if there was anything cool to see while visiting you.”

Annabeth stops for a moment, hand wrapped around another stack of skate magazines. 

“I was  _ thinking _ about moving out there,” she corrects. “Is that why you hated California?” 

“Part of it. I guess.” He shrugs unconvincingly. 

Annabeth bites her lip, weighing her words. Before anything can be said Sally knocks at the door, gently pushing it open and stepping into the room. 

“I brought some tea. It should help you relax.” 

“Thanks, Sally.” Annabeth graciously accepts the cup, tearing herself away from the search. 

“It's been so long since I went through any of this. I'm not even sure why I keep it.” 

Annabeth turns to the piles of stuff Sally's referring to, holding the cup of tea close to her chest. 

“I'd forgotten about so much of it.” 

“It's still– it's strange to think–” Sally's voice is stained.

“I know. I still feel like–” she keeps her eyes from moving to where he sits on the floor– “like he's still here.” 

Sally only nods and sits on the bed behind Annabeth. She rests the cup on the floor next to her and resumes her search, picking through the magazines one at a time. Bold white lettering over the image of a coastal boardwalk catches her eye, the wording declaring the page where the best twenty skateparks in California can be found. 

She lets the other magazines fall to the floor, flipping through the pages in search of something, anything. 

Right where Percy had stated the magazine flips itself open, two thick tickets separating the pages as they wedge into the spine. The print is perfect, dark black letters giving the time and date they were printed. A perforated line separating the ticket from a small dot print picture of the museum. 

“He was so nervous to ask you.” Sally says quietly. 

“You knew?” 

“Of course I did. I knew about you two before either of you did,” Sally gives her a knowing smile and Annabeth blushes.

“Why didn't you tell me?” 

“After he went missing, and after Luke–” Annabeth winces– “I didn't want to put anything else on you. You know I used to hear him practicing asking you out.”

“ _ Mom!”  _ Percy's groan makes Annabeth laugh even as the tears build and start to fall. 

“I'll give you some time,” Sally says softly. “But it if you want to spend the night again just let me know.” 

Annabeth nods, her throat too tight, the pressure in her chest too much. 

“You okay?” Percy whispers when Sally's gone. 

“I couldn't have known about these,” she says, voice hollow and broken. 

“So?” 

“ _ So? _ So if I couldn't have known, then you told me. You knew where these were. Exactly where they were.” 

Percy's eyes slowly widen. 

“You're not something I made up. You're not me having a mental breakdown. You're–” 

“Really here.”

* * *

 

“Annabeth,” Percy's voice is soft enough she misses it at first. “Annabeth,” he says more firmly. 

“Hm?” 

“What happened to Luke?” 

The paper in her hand crinkles, crumpled lines breaking the perfect blocks of text. 

“He– he killed himself. They found him a couple days after you went missing.” The words are dry, cold, thick, pulling at her throat as they're said. 

“He killed himself?” Percy whispers, voice hoarse. 

She nods. The details of that case are locked away in a drawer she has no interest in opening, too cluttered with cobwebbed memories that will only drag up more pain. 

“Annabeth I– I think I went to see him.” 

Slowly she places the half crumpled piece of paper on the desk, turning her chair to look at him. 

“You think?”

“You two had fought. I– I know some of what he said to you and–”

“You were listening in on our conversation?”

“I didn't have to, you two were shouting.” 

“So you went to talk with him? Why?” She stands now, squaring herself to where Percy leans against the wall. 

“To make him apologize,” Percy says defensively. “After the shit he said to you–” 

“So you were going to ride in and save me?” 

“Why are you getting so angry about this?” 

“Because I didn't need you to ride in and save me, “ she snaps.

“I wasn't trying to save you!” Percy shouts back. “He was being a dick so I went to confront him and–” 

Percy's eyes shift, his gaze slipping to somewhere far past Annabeth. Something his eyes chase, snapping back and forth. 

“Percy,” she says gently, reaching out her hand like it will do any good. 

“He– he–” Percy's voice is distant, a strange echo with edges that blur and pop with static. 

“Percy.” She takes a step closer. 

His eyes snap back to her, back to now. 

“I think– I think it was Luke.” 

Her spine becomes a single perfect column, her skin turning to slick cold stone. 

“No.” 

“Annabeth it makes–”

“No,” she repeats, taking a step back. 

“I'm telling you–” 

“No!” Her voice cracks, the word bringing the world to a deafening silence. 

“Why not? Why couldn't it have been him?” 

“Because.” 

“Because? That's your best reasoning?”

“Because we were family. Luke was my family. He wouldn't have done that. He wouldn't have taken you from me.” 

“You don't think so?” he shouts, stepping towards her.

Percy’s face is cold, his eyebrows pinched together. He gestures wildly to nothing. 

“After everything that happened between us? After you chose me instead of him? You don't think he was jealous?”

“He promised. We were family and he promised.” Annabeth is defiant, adamant, ridged. 

The thought of that level of betrayal, of Luke taking Percy's life and then his own, she refuses to accept it. 

“Where was my stuff found, Annabeth?” 

Annabeth can picture the exact spot. She can see the walk the few short blocks to where Luke was squatting. Can even see the details all coming together. 

“No,” she whispers firmly. 

“Why are you protecting him? He hurt you, he probably killed me, and you're still protecting him? I'm at the bottom of a fucking river and you're choosing him?” 

“Because how can I live with that, Percy? How can I live with myself knowing that the one person who was supposed to be my family killed the boy I loved and then killed himself? You disappeared, Luke killed himself, and I was alone. Again. Just like before.” Her body shakes, there are no tears but the sobs wrack her. 

“Annabeth,” his voice is softer but thick with pain. “I know he was family. I know he took care of you but you have to see the truth. Luke–”

“Luke killed you,” she says over him. “And it's my fault.”

* * *

 

It takes weeks to pick out the seven seconds that changes everything. Weeks spent digging up any case that takes place along the path between Sally Jackson's apartment and the run-down studio. A civil case and grainy CCTV footage is the bow that wraps up the events into proof of Annabeth's worse nightmare. The flickering image of Percy opening the door to Luke's building, hair a mess and skateboard tucked under his arm lingers. When she catches him out of the corner of her eye she sees it, the same look of pained determination. The same look he probably wore to his death. 

In a desperate grab for hope Annabeth gets a warrant for Luke's old apartment. After ten years there's little left to hope for, but the alternative is to do nothing. 

The team sweeps the apartment, a dark stain still set into the worn and ruined floor. Annabeth wonders how much blood is from Luke, how much is from Percy, and how much is on her hands. 

They bury Percy a week later. She'd asked to dredge more of the Hudson, even brought in Sally to use a mother's grief to pull the strings she couldn't. But they could drain the entire river and never find a thing. So they stand around a coffin filled with only a soft velvet lining and memories of a boy that vanished. 

Annabeth lingers off to the side, leaving Sally and Paul and a few others take their places at the front. A square of grass between the rows of stone markers is left open for them, the edge of the gaping hole they’ll lay him in just a step away. The damp open pit a blemish on the flat expanse of even green and neat rows of grey. 

Percy shifts while they read over him, hands clenching and unclenching, eyes shifting from the polished wooden coffin to the tears that roll down his mother's face to Annabeth's unwavering gaze. His hands move to his pockets, to his sides, back to his pockets. She does her best to focus on the words being said, on the message of life and loss and letting go but the quick, incessant movements drag her attention back to him. 

“You know there's not as many people as I thought there’d be.”

The muscles in her arms strain, her fingers pressed into fists in front of her.

“Everyone's so sad,” he mutters, forgetting that she's the only one who can hear him. “It's like someone died.” 

Annabeth feels the first hitch in her chest, the burning that creeps into the corners of her eyes.

“I hope the food’s good at least.”

“Percy,” she hisses through gritted teeth, thankful she's distanced herself from Sally and Paul. “Please.”

She bites down on the pain, on the tears, on the hurt in her voice but burns on her tongue and lips. Percy's eyes widen, his palms wiping against his legs as he turns his head back towards the coffin.

“Sorry.” 

Annabeth stands before her best friend's coffin while the silence of the world and the weight of having him so close to her burns through her skin.

* * *

 

The silence of her apartment pounds in her ears, filling every corner and nook until she's left drowning in it. The hum of traffic, of echoes of her neighbors, the sounds of life, she itches to have any of them. Her nerves spark and snap, her skin and muscles taught, all rushing to have anything more than the sound of her rasping breath while she sits in her bed. The wall presses into her back, the cold of stone creeping into her skin.

“Annabeth.” His voice shatters the silence for one brief second before it comes rushing back in. 

She counts the seconds as she inhales, feeling her chest lift and lungs burn. Then she counts back down, letting the breath slip between slightly parted lips. Annabeth let's her eyes drift open, sliding them over Percy as he sits at the opposite edge of her bed. 

His hair is perfectly disheveled, a few silky black strands falling across his forehead. His cheeks are tinted with the hint of a blush. His eyes shooting up from her lips. In another world she could rock forward and close the distance between them. She could run her fingers through his hair and feel the hitch in his breathing the second their lips touched. She could laugh when the toppled backwards off the bed, smile at him as he kissed her again. In another world he could be hers.

She lifts an eyebrow, waiting for him to gather himself together and continue. He shifts but the bed stays perfectly still, not even a crease forming in the sheets. 

“Why am I still here?” 

Her stomach plummets, the whispers at the back of her mind that rose from the dark black earth they buried him under suddenly become roaring in her ears.

_ Why? _

She swallows, the weight of the words she has to say threatening to pull them into her stomach and burn through her. 

“I don't know.” She manages to keep the words steady and strong. 

“Should I still be here? I mean we had a funeral. The case is closed. Shouldn't I be headed to some bright light?” 

“I've never died so I couldn't tell you.” It's not entirely true, part of her died the day he did, it's just taking a while for the rest to catch up. 

“Do you– do you think there's still something holding me here?” 

Annabeth bites down on the words that threaten to spill out of her, the ones she hears herself shouting in her head, the ones that should be so obvious to him. 

“Maybe,” she says instead. 

“I was an idiot,” he says with an exasperated sigh. “Even after you kissed me I didn't say anything. I should have.” His head drops. “I should have told you when I was alive.” 

Annabeth reaches out her hand and stops, fingers hovering over his hand. She curls them into a first, pressing her knuckles into her leg. 

“It was so freaking obvious.” He rolls his head back, eyes staring off past the ceiling. “I was just scared. Scared that you didn't feel the same and that I'd lose you. But maybe– maybe if I'd gone to see you instead of– maybe I'd be alive to say them right now.” 

Her mind tells her to shut him up, to yell at him, to push him, to kiss him. The words are there, building in him, finally reaching the point where they will boil out of him unless he says them. The words she would have died to hear ten years ago may kill her now. The three words she's waited for maybe the only thing holding him here. 

“Annabeth, I love you. And I think I've loved you since I was twelve. I don't know what's going to happen to me and honestly I don't care. I just– I need you to know that.” 

He smiles, that lopsided, stomach flipping, troublesome grin. She lurches forward, the memory of a kiss shared twelve years ago burning on her skin. Percy's eyes flash, his mouth opening to say something but Annabeth doesn't wait. Can't wait. Her eyes flutter closed, fingers curling into the comforter. The hope that anything will actually happen is a futile as drinking sea water, but she's been adrift too long and the temptation overcomes her.

She feels the warmth of his body, the smell of salt and the ocean, the heat of his breath across her lips and for a second he's there again. Annabeth pushes forward the last inches, cheeks hurting as she breaks into a giddy and breathless grin. And there, right where Percy should be, is nothing. 

Annabeth's eyes snap open. Her spartan room empty except for herself and the hint of an ocean breeze. 

Slowly she curls back in on herself, letting the tears that build and burn on the corner of her eyes come steadily on. Annabeth sits alone in her room, a warm weight that grew in her chest suddenly missing. Vanished with the boy she loves.

  
  
  



End file.
